Designing a good cover photo for any fan page can be difficult, especially when you have to follow Facebook’s guidelines. And, once it’s finally uploaded, many users run into a new problem – image compression.
Although your cover photo may look great to begin with, once it’s been uploaded, you may see something completely different.
Here’s a (drastic) example:
Click on the images for a closer look!
Spot the difference? Facebook likes to compress images that are over 100kb – making the best cover photos look like a grainy, pixelated train wreck.
Although we can’t get a pixel-perfect conversion to Facebook (yet), saving your cover photo under 100kb will do the trick, and will skip the compression process.
If you’re using Photoshop, try these settings on Save for Web & Devices:
image courtesy of Media Orb
Lower the Quality of the image until it’s just under 100kb. Depending on what’s in your cover, anything between 70-80 will work. As long as the photo is not over 100kb, it won’t be compressed; setting up a test page for cover photos isn’t a bad idea, either.